concept

Often, an architect's idea for a design will stem from a key guiding concept. Represented in a multitude of different ways - from sketches, to models, to even writing - a concept seeks to distill a "big idea" that informs the general principle or inspiration driving the decisions present in the work. The process of deriving a concept often begins with a hypothesis; the architect may think of a guiding concept and see if they could expand it into an entire design system, or alternatively work from a broad system and figure out how it would inform individual elements. The concept may not even explicty relate to architcture and, in fact, many compelling examples do not. Steven Holl, for example, began with the concept of a sponge in exploring the perforations in MIT's Simmons Hall. What is true, however, is that strong design comes from a strong, well-executed concept.